A Rat's Tale
by Sweet September Storm
Summary: I didn't ask to become a human, but that's just the thing: they didn't ask either. One minute I was pitter-pattering along the garden wall, not a thought in my head beyond my warm nest and a nice crust of bread, and the next I was shivering, naked, facedown on all fours in the flabby and cumbersome body of a man. The tale of Cinderella from a whole new perspective.


**A Rat's Tale**

* * *

I didn't ask to become a human, but that's just the thing: they didn't ask either. In my brief but illuminating experience with the so-called master race, I've noticed that tendency to be particularly rampant among human folk. Anything with more than two legs and less than opposable thumbs gets treated worse than second class. Rats don't have rights. Mice don't have rights. Lizards most definitely don't have rights. When it comes to fulfilling someone else's agenda, we don't get a lick of choice in the matter.

My case serves as a perfect example. One minute I was pitter-pattering along the garden wall, not a thought in my head beyond my warm nest and a nice crust of bread, and the next I was shivering, naked, facedown on all fours in the flabby and cumbersome body of a man.

Yes. A _man._

There isn't any analogy, any metaphor, any simile in Ratspeak quite suited to describe the feeling of being unmade as one creature and remade in the shape of another. Had I never been human, I would still have no words for it. I suppose that was the one small boon given me in exchange for my troubles: when I returned to my rat self, I kept some knowledge of humanspeak. Still, with the tongue and teeth of a rodent incapable of forming most human words, it was a poor swap on my end.

To the best of my ability, this is what it was like:

Once when I was a young rat pup, my cousins and I stumbled across Monsieur Reynard at his dinner. The chicken coop at the back of the Big House had developed an unfortunate hole in one of the baseboards, no doubt gnawed there by the mangy, flea-bitten rats of the Grey Pelt clan. They have a taste for eggs and no regard for the feelings of others.

Needless to say, Monsieur Reynard was just lean enough to thrust an inquiring nose into the opening, and, to his pleasure and the chicken's permanent surprise, came away with a snout-bloodying, feather-choking, bone-snapping, gristle-crunching mouthful of very fresh poultry. His bulk also managed to dislodge the rest of the baseboard. Being a conscientious opportunist, he left it hanging by a nail, undoubtedly to ensure his dessert. The hen that told me this half of the story assures me that her fellow chickens still swear by the fear of that free-hanging board.

My cousins and I discovered Reynard and his dinner on the stone pavement just outside of the coop, the bushy orange heart at the center of an increasingly large circle of torn flesh and bloody feathers. We stopped and stared, for being only a week old, this was the first death we had ever seen. It was terrible, to be sure, but until my encounter with that frightful sparkling woman with the wand I had never quite understood why.

Now I do. Like any decent meat-eater, Reynard had no regard for neatness while he ate. He tore open the chicken and buried his snout in the steaming insides. The final result was a pitiful pile of flesh that, save for the few feathers that had escaped Reynard's first attack and later settled downy and sad on the carcass of their former owner, was no longer recognizable as a chicken.

That image remained with me as the only thing to which I can effectively compare my experience. I was the chicken; the Wand Woman was the fox. Her magic had teeth, and it turned me inside out. That was what it felt like to become human.

I won't say it took me a minute or so to get my bearings. That would be a lie. If I had been trapped in that body for a lifetime I would be no closer to finding my bearings, and the Wand Woman gave me no time for little luxuries like adjustment. Her voice came thick and syrupy from above me, dull to my new ears but still somehow impossibly sour, like spoiled honey. When she had finished speaking I was no longer trembling. Human clothes of the most ridiculous sort had appeared on—I will not say _my_ body, cause it wasn't mine—the body in which I was imprisoned. Ghastly thick, stiff stuff, and ringed along the neck and wrists with some holey white stuff that would have been put to much better use chewed up in the nest of a Red Pelt rat.

There was a tap on my shoulder. Straining and sweating (which in itself was a new experience) I tried to manipulate the muscles that would give me a good view of whoever was above me. Having lived for all of my three years in the walls and floorboards of the Big House, I'm not unfamiliar with the human shape. Great-Grandfather Whiptail has always said that humans share more with us that we might like to admit, and I thought this the ideal time to put that theory to the test.

He was not wrong, but he was not entirely right either. I managed to arch my back and roll both my shoulders before discovering that the neck did in fact turn from side to side. I turned and looked up.

The Wand Woman stood above me and clucked a few times like a troubled hen. Oh, how I wished at that moment for Monsieur Reynard to appear and repeat the incident at the chicken coop! Of course it would have done no good for Wand Woman to die, even if she was hen-sized instead of human-sized. I was still a man, and by the Great Red Rodent I would make her turn me back before she died, even if it cost me my tail.

She waved her wand and touched my head once with the tip.

It was as though a cold breeze passed through me. Not over me, but actually through me—bones, sinews, absurd human finery and all.

"Up on your feet, my good man."

And to my great surprise, I obeyed. Or rather, the ears heard and the muscles obeyed, lifting the body off the paving stones without my consent. I had little say in the matter, for this body was the Wand Woman's. I, Worthington Whiptail III, had been banished like old thieving Ronald Rustwhisker to a dusty corner within my own mind.

I'm surprised the humiliation did not kill that body right there. Apparently humans can handle a great deal of it.

"Now, what else do you need, my dear?"

Wand Woman turned away from me. She spoke to another human female, a younger one, who was sitting on the garden bench with the heels of her paws—hands—buried in her eyes. She kept rubbing and rubbing them, making an awful whining noise the whole while. Wand Woman ignored her as she pointed her wand towards a corner of the garden I couldn't see.

"Perfect!"

In an instant six gray horses and two stick-thin humans stood where before there had been nothing but weeds. My heart, uncomfortably placed higher than just about every other organ in this body, gave a fearful shudder. From the markings on the horses' muzzles and the speckled faces of the humans I recognized them; or at least the creatures they had been. The horses were young mouselings, the sextuplets Meanie, Minnie, Moe, Mellie, Marlie and Harold Musmus. Each of them had inherited their father's white ear. The humans, now dressed by the Wand Woman's design in hideous outfits of starchy black, had been the lizard brothers Cicero and Salasar Sirza.

"What think you?" the Wand Woman asked.

I thought she was ten dozen times the worst creature on earth, enslaving mice and rats and lizards with her magic, but of course she was not asking me. The Weeping Girl gave a sniffling sob and looked up.

"There en't no coach, godmomma."

"Ah!"

Another wave, another flick of her wand, and the last pumpkin of the pumpkin patch exploded in a groaning clang of wheels and harnesses. Wand Woman had turned a plant into a coach.

"What think you now, my sweet?"

"But what 'em I gonna _wear,_ godmomma? They'll laugh at me in these rags!"

"Worry not, child," Wand Woman assured her, and the girl's clothes were rags no more. I pitied her the change; the new outfit was all a-boiling with frills and ruffles and enough fabric to comfortably line the nests of all the rat clans of the Big House many times over. It looked at least as awkward as the body I was bearing, but the girl seemed delighted. She contorted her face in a manner consistent with what I believed was the human expression for joy, all open mouth and crinkly eyes. She certainly made no attempt to remove the offending clothes.

"Oh godmomma!"

"Fitting for a princess indeed! Now hurry my dear, you must go quickly!"

Before I heard the girl's reply, the muscles of the strange body were seized with what I could only guess was magic. I felt the mouth and cheeks contort in the same way the girl's had as booted, unsteady feet marched towards the pumpkin-carriage. Shaky hands found traces and leather straps as Salasar and Cicero and I harnessed those poor mice, who seemed to have as little control over those horse-bodies as I had over mine. When they were thoroughly trussed up, the lizard brothers took their places at the back of the carriage and I took the seat above it. The coach shook slightly as the Weeping Girl climbed in, and then we were off.

Of all the degrading and humiliating things I suffered during my brief time as a human, that carriage ride was by far the worst. The body directed the horses with cries and beatings, for that sadistic Wand Woman had placed a whip in my hand and her magic insisted that I use it whenever the mice began to slow down. The poor things! They were only a month old! If I could have thrown away that whip I would have done it in a hummingbird's heartbeat. But magic stiffened the body's muscles and kept me seated, my face twisted into what I could imagine was an expression of delight.

By the time we at last came to a halt, I was torn between hatred of the Wand Woman and her sniveling accomplice for putting me in this position and hatred of myself for not having the strength to resist.

In short, I was right miserable.

Weeping Girl—who was definitely not weeping anymore—took no notice of my misery. With a laugh she burst from the coach and hurried up the steps of the brightly lit building in front of which we had stopped without so much as a glance backwards to see if her animal slaves were all right. I followed her with my eyes as long as I could, hoping my face would relax enough to form a snarl. It didn't.

In fact, not a bit of Wand Woman's spell weakened over the course of the next few hours. Had it released us, I can guarantee that that girl would not find a rat, two lizards and six mice waiting for her when she returned. For all I know, if it had the chance the pumpkin would have forsaken her as well. But there was no chance. I was bolted to my carriage seat, rigid and grinning, with the whip in my hand. Doubtless Salasar, Cicero and the Musmus sextuplets found themselves similarly incapacitated, for when the girl deigned to grace us again with her presence, none of us had moved a whisker.

Cruel, _cruel _humans.

The journey back to the Big House was better than the first only because of its conclusion. As the midnight bell rang out over the silent country fields, I felt the bulky human form slip away from me, and I sank back into the blessed familiarity of four paws and warm fur and a perfect pink tail. Great Red Rodent, that was the most beautiful moment of my life.

So naturally, with the luck I'd had for the past day, that moment was not to last.

I did try to escape. We all did. But none of us made it past the garden wall before Wand Woman interfered again. With a flick of her wand I was brought up mid-scurry, as though I had reached the end of an invisible tether.

"Tut tut, little ones! Dear Ella has need of you tomorrow night! It wouldn't do for you to run off now, would it? We might not find you again in time!"

If she had been standing a little closer I would have bitten her toes. It would be the most appropriate response.

"Godmomma, the prince danced wit' me!" Weeping Girl said, no longer dressed in the enormous dress but still grinning as though her life depended on it. She spun around the garden with arms flung wide, eyes half closed, swanning for her imaginary prince. "They're en't no one lovelier, I know it. Oh, godmomma, I do _so_ want to marry him!"

"And marry him you shall, my sweet, but that's for tomorrow's ball. Now hurry off; your stepsisters will be home soon. You mustn't let them know you were gone!"

The girl gathered up her filthy skirts and ducked her head. "Thanks ever so much, godmomma!" With that she dashed away into the shadows of the Big House. Only the beasts remained in the garden, and the worst one did not leave until she saw the girl was safely inside. Then she too disappeared.

It began to rain. Huddled in the tightest ball I could manage, I closed my eyes and wished for the scent and press and warmth of my nest as I had never wished before. _Home…home…I'll be home soon. Nest and straw and yesterday's cheese rind and last week's moldy bread and dry fur and scratch and gnaw and dear Veronica Velvetfur the next nest over…_

Quite without warning my eyes sprang open. Broken by the sound of the raindrops and muffled as it was by their siblings' damp fur, a thin cry from one of the mouselings roused me. Never before I had I heard a more pitiful sound. It worked on me as strongly as that witch's spell, drawing me out of myself, forcing me to uncurl and face the poor crouching pile of mice not a half-dozen strides away from me. There was that cry again. I heard it more clearly now. Little Mellie was begging for help, for mother or father, or simply for a broader back to shelter behind.

I was driven forward by that cry. I could not stop myself. Step by spellbound step, fighting the chill of the wet stone and the dullness of the enchantment for every movement as I neared the end of my invisible tether. My breath grew labored and my whiskers trembled with the effort. Then…it was broken! The spell snapped; I was free!

Mellie's cry faded to a dull whimper, nearly drowned out by the rain. Still, I heard it, and because I heard it I did not run for the Big House. The mouselings and the lizard brothers were still trapped beneath Wand Woman's invisible cages. What to do? My fellow creatures called me one way; my creature comforts another. But then the thought came to me, chillier than the stone beneath my paws. How was it that a little mousemaid's weeping had such power over me? Why had I gone towards them in the first place?

Was that strange tug not so very different from the Wand Woman's manipulation of that human body, telling it where to go and how to look and what to do?

I balked at that.

No matter how I cried, or the mouselings cried, or any other creature on earth cried, nothing would be worse than that feeling.

And so, with the rain dripping in cold rivulets off my sodden fur, my ears down and my whiskers trailing near my forepaws, I turned from Mellie's cry and began to make my way back to my nest and my clan and the warm stink of home.

After all, I am only an animal.


End file.
